USAID's
$14 Million Going Into Selected Pockets of Government Cronies
By
M T Butt and Shaheen Sehbai
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON:
A $14 million USAID project launched in Pakistan to educate parliamentarians
in legislative business appears to have been hijacked by Government
bureaucrats, greedy good-for-nothing NGOs and colluding salaried
staff of the Parliament with
the real stakeholders, the elected representatives, totally out
of the loop.
After
an extensive investigation by the South Asia Tribune
including interviews with the concerned US sponsors, managers
of the program and parliamentarians, it becomes clear that more
than one million dollars have already been spent, several bureaucrats
and even the Speaker of the National Assembly have enjoyed junkets
to Washington and none of the major players has any idea of what
is going on.
Even the US sponsors are surprised
at the way the project is being handled and they have no idea
that some of the components of the project, like starting a “live”
TV Channel called P-Span (taken from C-Span in US), at a cost
of $5 million, may never be allowed by the military rulers. Yet
the money will be spent and people will benefit.
It
all started when USAID indicated it would provide money for promoting
and strengthening democracy in Pakistan. A huge amount of $14
million was allocated. Several Government officials and sharp
cookies outside, got active and quickly a network of small NGOs
was identified, set up and activated to get some share of this
big cake, all in the name of teaching parliamentarians how to
be effective, obviously against the Generals.
So
commenced the project, known as Strengthening National
and Provincial Legislative Governance (SNPLG) in
Pakistan, a three-year program that officially started on October
1, 2003 and will end on September 30, 2006. The project was launched
in February 2004. It was said to be a participatory program and
the managers claim from its inception Parliamentarians, from both
the Upper and Lower House, have been involved not only in program
activities but also in design, implementation and feedback.
World
Vision, a Washington-based Christian charity was
given the contract by USAID to give Pakistani parliamentarians
lessons in democracy. World Vision described itself in these words
on its web site: “ World Vision is an international Christian
relief and development organization working to promote the well
being of all people - especially children. In 2003, World Vision
offered material, emotional, social and spiritual support to 100
million people in 99 countries.”
In response to questions by SA Tribune, World Vision
said: “WV’s bid was chosen by USAID based on the innovative
nature of the program and the quality of the Pakistan
Legislative Strengthening Consortium (PLSC) partners
who were included at the time. Some of the partners were chosen
for their reputation at the national level and others because
of their existing work in the four provinces. A consortium (PLSC)
was formed to utilize the strengths of all the partners and to
ensure that an integrated program was carried out.”
The PLSC, comprised several NGOs, most of them never heard of
like TR, Irdo, CCHD or AWARD. PLSC does not even have a web site
and it uses the EMail of Researchers.org. But as part of PLSC,
the main job was given to Pakistan Institute of Legislative
Development and Transparency or PILDAT which describes
itself as a non-partisan organization.
The
following rationale has been given by PILDAT on its web site:
“This organization will struggle to address the deficiencies
in the political culture of Pakistan. PILDAT will strive to facilitate
greater and more effective participation of all segments of the
society in the elections, ensure transparency of candidates and
continuously work to strengthen the democratic institutions. The
founders of PILDAT strongly believe that the restoration of real
democracy and its sustenance is extremely important for the future
of the country. To pursue this broader goal, PILDAT wants to provide
ample opportunities to the legislators to build their capacity
and capability in the discharge of their duties and that creates
an enabling social environment for democracy and democratic values
to flourish.” (http://www.pildat.org)
These
are formidable goals, but only when they have to be put on a web
site, not in practice.
Who
runs PILDAT and who are its master minds? The list will show the
credentials are dubious at best and extremely doubtful in the
least.
Well
known lawyer and currently right hand of General Musharraf, his
biggest legal trouble shooter and adviser, Senator S. M. Zafar
is PILDAT Board of Advisers Chairman. As the man who supported
and voted for the infamous Legal Framework Order (LFO), he claims
in the PILDAT manifesto he is working for "real democracy"
in Pakistan.
The
other members of PILDAT Board include: Right wing Journalist Mujib-ur-Rehman
Shami, Gallop Pollster and pro-Jamaat Dr. Ijaz Shafi Gilani, retired
politician Muhammad Haneef Ramay, five prominent Pakistanis living
overseas who may have been roped in because of the USAID money
or its name. These include Lord Nazeer Ahmed of UK, Dr. Zahid
H. Bukhari, a PhD in Political Science from the University of
Connecticut, Mr. Mohammad Sarwar, a member of the British House
of Commons from Glasgow, Mr. Khalid Mahmood, also a British Parliamentarian
of Pakistani origin from Birmingham, and Dr. Donya Aziz, MNA,
a medical doctor from US and part of the Human Development Foundation
of Dr. Nasim Ashraf.
The only odd looking name in this list is of Prof. Dr. Hasan-Askari
Rizvi a Political and Defense analyst and writer. How much of
a say he has in PILDAT is not clear and what he is getting out
of it is also not known.
PILDAT,
giving its 'background' on its web site explains the reasons for
the Failure of Democracy in Pakistan in the Past. It says there
can be a number of explanations to this frequent breakdown of
democratic process but some of the popularly accepted reasons
are as follows:
•
The elected representatives were by and large not aware of their
rights and responsibilities and no effective system was evolved
to make these representatives aware of their responsibilities.
• During the periods of military rule, the political process
which on its own momentum develops new leadership in the country
came to a halt. Whenever democracy was restored, the process did
not continue long enough to allow new leadership to emerge.
• The educated classes mostly from the middle class remained
largely unconcerned about the political process. They were either
ignored or got disillusioned because they saw no prospects for
them in the process. The political activity remained largely confined
to the moneyed class or the street toughs. The educated middle
class, professionals, scholars, minorities and women need to be
encouraged to join the political process more actively.
• There had been no initiative taken by the citizens to
monitor the performance of the elected representatives and elected
bodies and to hold them accountable to their voters on the basis
of their track record.
It
very conveniently ignores the dominating role played by the armed
forces of Pakistan in not allowing democracy to flourish. The
obvious omission is enough to establish that PILDAT has some other
agenda in mind and does not want to irritate the real power holders,
lest its financial interests are hurt. It all smacks of opportunism
and making hay while the sun shines, even in the name of democracy.
The organization is not sure of its own standing yet, as it has
been put together in some hurry to achieve its goals, mainly financial.
On its web site, under the title of its “Vision”,
PILDAT describes its Short Term goal as: “We wish to see
PILDAT establishing itself as a serious, non-partisan and respected
institution strongly committed to the capability building of the
elected representatives and legislatures….”
This
clearly shows it does not believe it is yet a serious and respected
institution.
“During
this phase we see the basic institution building process completing
and important databases taking firm shape setting a strong foundation
for the Institute for its later activities and plans,” it
adds.
In
the mid-term, it says: “We wish to see PILDAT gradually
spreading its emphasis from capability building to performance
monitoring and legislative oversight, voters education and good
governance issues as well and emerging in the process as a respected
and trusted institution whose opinions are valued both at home
and abroad.
“In the long-term, we would like to see PILDAT as an established
respected national institution actively engaged in all its functions
including the grooming and development of new political leadership
in the country especially the one belonging to the segments who
traditionally have lower representation in legislatures such as
women, professionals, minorities and scholars….”
But
what PILDAT is doing on the ground is contrary to all these stated
goals and vision. It supported the LFO, accepted it as part of
the Constitution even before it was passed by the Parliament and
has not hesitated to work with dictators, trampling upon all democratic
principles and practices.
The best PILDAT and its larger consortium, PLSC, have done so
far is organizing a few seminars in Islamabad and providing free
rides to America to some officials of the National Assembly and
Senate secretariats. Most of these seminars have been funded by
a previous UK grant by Department for International Development
(DFID), which PILDAT deceptively claims to be its own performance
under the USAID program.
Yet whatever it has done was kept secret from the people in whose
name the whole game is being played. The Opposition parties have
been totally shut out and if that is what “real democracy”
advocated by PILDAT means, it is a clear sign of where the $14
million of USAID will be going.
Recently a delegation of NA and Senate secretariat visited Washington
and the Speaker, Choudhry Amir Hussain also dropped in after attending
the IPU meeting in Mexico. When SA Tribune asked World
Vision about the visit, PLSC responded with this answer: “The
leader of the delegation was the Speaker of the National Assembly,
who is an elected official. Others in the delegation included
the Secretary of National Assembly and Secretary and Joint-Secretary
of Senate. These individuals are important decision makers, crucial
to the success of the program. The delegation was invited by the
PLSC. The purpose of the visit was to orient the members of the
delegation with the latest media and research activities related
to parliamentary business such as C-Span (live television broadcast
of Assembly sessions), Library of Congress (LOC) and Congressional
Research Service (CRS).
“An
important part of the program involved seeing at first hand democracies
at work and seeing some of the administrative components that
help strengthen legislators. This was also a good opportunity
for the members of the delegation to meet US Congress representatives
to discuss important bilateral issues.
“Regarding
cost, the delegation stayed in standard hotel rooms at the Holiday
Inn on Capitol Hill, and the group from the National Assembly
passed through D.C. on their way to Islamabad from the Inter parliamentary
Union (IPU) meetings in Mexico City. The PLSC paid for the three
National Assembly delegates’ portion of their plane tickets
for the stopover in Washington, D.C., and paid for the full tickets
for the two members of the Senate delegation who came directly
from Pakistan.”
Much
was done for the officials. But they refused to discuss the purpose
of their visit with the Press in Washington saying they had come
to attend a conference.
Even
a PPP Senator, Khawaja Akbar who was also visiting Washington
later told SA Tribune: "It does not seem to be a
participatory process. Parliamentarians (belonging to Opposition
parties) who are also key stakeholders in this project have been
never briefed about this project neither by the Government nor
by USAID. I was unaware and was not invited to the Project launch
held in February in Islamabad. It is a false claim that parliamentarians
have been involved in design and implementation.
“I
am supportive to the overall mission of the project but there
is a perception among some parliamentarians that USAID and DFID
have been funding such initiatives to watch/monitor parliamentarians'
activities -- with an assistance from some handpicked government-NGOs
(GNGOs) in Pakistan which do not seems to have capacity or experience
to implement such a project. There is also a perception that there
was no transparency for Call, Selection, and Evaluation of the
implementing NGOs.”
The
spokesman of the PPP in the Upper House, Senator Farhatullah Babar,
had a more direct response. When questioned by SA Tribune,
Babar said: "In the participatory program of SNPLG the Parliamentarians
are invited only to activities like seminars, discussions and
briefing sessions on various issues. I am not aware of invitation
to any PPP member to assist in the designing and feed back aspects
of the program which are no less important…There is no direct
interaction of the project coordinators/managers with the parliamentarians
and the selection is left to the Chairman/Speaker."
The
most controversial and mysterious part of the $14 million project
is P-Span, the $5 million TV channel which is supposed to telecast
the proceedings of the NA and Senate live to the Pakistani people.
The USAID has been made to believe that it is a serious possibility.
An application has been made to Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory
Authority (PEMRA) and an answer is awaited. A well known US NGO,
IFES, will do the portion of P-Span for World Vision, if the Government
of Pakistan permits it.
Now
anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of the Pakistani
scene would know that the military government would never in its
life allow a live telecast of the proceedings. They do not even
allow recorded and edited proceedings on TV. Though the Speaker
has the authority to allow cameras inside the House, he has never
allowed any private channel to cover any major parliamentary event.
The inaugural address of General Musharraf was covered only by
PTV and after a lot of precautions had been taken to censor out
protesting Opposition voices. No pictures of the protest were
shown.
So
it is intriguing how have these unknown NGOs fooled the USAID
to make them believe P-Span would become a reality and USAID would
be providing hardware and $5 million for the channel.
SA
Tribune put these questions to World Vision on the subject:
Q:
Pakistan TV is fully government controlled and only is used for
Government propaganda. Will P-Span be under PTV control or regulations
and will it be used for official propaganda as well?
A:
The fact that P-Span is live means that there will be no editorial
comment. The whole idea of having a live channel is to give the
people access to Parliamentary proceedings. While there may be
some grandstanding, all members of Parliament, including the opposition,
will be able to express their views.
Q:
Who has named the proposed TV Channel for Parliamentary proceedings
as P-Span, on lines of C-Span?
A:
As part of our proposal, it was suggested that under this particular
project a parliamentary channel for the Pakistani Parliament would
be established similar to C-Span. The name of P-Span was just
a suggestion which may, at a later date, be changed based on public
opinion.
Q:
Has Government approval/permission been obtained to set up P-Span
and whether it has been agreed that proceedings of Pakistani Parliament
would be shown live on P-Span.?
A:
The application for approval to run P-Span is pending at the moment
with Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA). Members
of the National Assembly have expressed enthusiasm for the concept
of running a live Parliamentary Channel.
Q:
Who will pay the recurring expenses of P-Span and other project
programs after the USAID $14 million funding is exhausted?
A:
In some countries Parliament charges TV stations for the privilege
of broadcasting the proceedings of Parliament. In other situations,
broadcasting is paid for via advertisements. In the case of P-Span
the question of sustainability is yet to be determined during
this course of the project implementation. The best method will
be determined based on the Pakistani context.
The
fact that Parliamentarians, and specially Opposition MPs, have
not been included in the whole project is one indicator where
the project is going. In a few weeks from now, a 30-member Pakistani
Parliamentary delegation will be invited by PLSC to tour US, but
no one has yet been told about it. Secret selections, it is learnt,
have been completed.
The
SA Tribune asked World Vision about it and the response
came from PLSC.
Q:
Has a 30-member Parliamentary delegation been invited to visit
US in July? If so have any members of Parliament, including Opposition
members been informed, consulted or included in the delegation?
Who has given final shape to the delegation and what is the guarantee
that the visit will not be used to provide a free junket to friends
and family?
A:
Part of the project design involves study tours to the US and
other countries including the United Kingdom and Australia. A
27-member delegation will be invited on a study tour in July or
September to the US. The selection process is based on the actual
performance of legislators, and is across all party lines. Gender
balance has been taken into consideration with 30% of the participants
being women. PLSC will approve the final list of candidates after
consultation with legislative stakeholders. In addition to the
rigorous selection criteria, the program that is being designed
is not only a busy one, but will demand a high level of engagement
from the legislators. This study tour is definitely not “a
junket for friends and family.”
High
sounding phrases and terminology like “performance of legislators”,
“stakeholders”, “rigorous selection criteria”,
“high level of engagement”, all provide the required
cover to pick up pliant pro-government people who need to be compensated
for their support on one government bill or another. No one believes
the 'performance' means speaking out against an unconstitutional
and illegal law to kill or curb democracy.
World Vision was asked to send to SA Tribune the names
of all the Parliamentarians who had been involved with the project
so far, as repeatedly the project managers had been claiming that
MPs were associated with it.
The response came from PLSC Executive,
Communication Manager Tariq Junaid, who in an E-Mail said this:
(Pl note the mistakes in the message as it is being reproduced
unedited):
“In
all Pakistan Legislative Strengthening Consortium (PLSC) activities
including: legislative training workshops, briefings, seminars
and current affairs TV programs that we have carried out so far,
in the national and four provincial capitals, legislators from
all the political parties have participated. Both Opposition and
Government parties have show a lot of interest in the activities
we have carried out to date. These Legislators includes Mr. Shah
Mahmood Qureshi (PPPP), Samia Raheel Qazi (MMA) and Mr Naveed
Qamar (PPPP). From the Government side there has been National
and Provincial Assembly Speakers, the Foreign Minister and other
Ministers.
“To
include all of the parliamentarians that we have had involvement
with, as part of this program, would be a major task and I can't
see the benefit of supplying such list. However, if the information
provided above is not sufficient please contact me and I will
supply you with further information.”
SA
Tribune called Mr. Junaid for further clarifications. He
was asked whether the project was “educating” only
the powerless politicians or has it any plan to educate the real
power holders, the Generals, who do not allow parliamentarians
to exercise power. Have you invited any General to your training
program to show them how to let democracy work?
And
what about the third pillar of the Parliament -- The Presidency.
These 14 million dollars will all go to teach powerless MPs how
to become effective but not a dollar is going to an equal and
the most powerful part of the Parliament. It is the Presidency
which needs to be taught some lessons in democracy.
Mr
Junaid in his recorded response said no General had been invited
as this program was only to educate the parliamentarians. “This
is not the first program of this kind. Asia Foundation ran a 10-year
program from 1985 to 1995. This time USAID wants them to provide
Parliamentarians the tools to play their role effectively.”
Asked why the Parliament was not
effective. Was it because the MPs were inexperienced or because
the Generals had not given them any powers, Mr Junaid admitted
it was both. “I think it is both basically because they
have not played their role as they should have.”
Q:
You are then not educating the Generals to do away with powers
in a democracy but you are teaching Parliamentarians to snatch
these powers from the generals, is this right?
A:
Sir, sir who are we to teach them to grab power. We are just trying
to tell them how they can be effective.
